Easter

Reading notes

• The Bishop §126 Easter

  The Orthodox Paschal feast, falling the day after Bishop Pyotr's death; the town's forty-two churches ring out in celebration while he is already forgotten.

• Late-Blooming Flowers §236 Easter

  The principal feast of the Orthodox liturgical calendar; here used as a calendar marker for how long Marusya waits in vain for Toporkov, whose marriage to another woman is announced soon after.

• The Sheet §1 Something for Easter

  The story's subtitle marks it as an Easter feuilleton, a genre piece keyed to the ritual of Easter well-wishing calls that structures the whole sketch.

• The Sheet §3 Christ is risen

  The traditional Orthodox Easter greeting, answered with "Truly He is risen"; here it is reduced to a pretext for the ritual bribe ("small token") extorted by doormen from callers making Easter visits.

• During Holy Week §37 at Easter

  Fedya's invitation to Mitka to come play knucklebones "на Пасху" looks forward to Easter Sunday itself, still days away past the remainder of Holy Week and Holy Saturday -- the reconciliation is offered before the feast that will formally close the penitential season the story takes place in.

• To M. M. Chekhov, 1 January 1877. Taganrog. §4 At Easter

  The major feast of the Orthodox liturgical calendar, here used simply as a personal milestone -- the date by which Chekhov expects to rejoin his family in Moscow.

• To N. A. Leikin, 1883. Moscow. §6 Easter

  The principal feast of the Orthodox calendar; Chekhov invokes the custom of a kind word said at Easter, even to a convict, as cover for his more serious story about an exile.

• To A. S. Suvorin, 18 March 1887. Moscow. §11 I shall try to send an Easter story.

  A brief return to ordinary business -- Chekhov's standing arrangement to supply Suvorin's paper, Novoye Vremya, with a story for its Easter issue.

• A Letter to a Learned Neighbor §3 Holy Easter

  The central feast of the Orthodox liturgical year; the narrator's 'discovery' that the sun visibly 'plays' with color on Easter morning reflects a genuine Russian folk belief about the rising Easter sun.

• A Failure of Compensation §4 Easter

  The Orthodox spring feast; Yanshin arrived at his sister's at Easter to help take her husband abroad, and by the story's Trinity-eve opening has already been there for nearly two months.

• The Thief §11 My first Easter here

  Easter (Pascha) is the principal feast of the Orthodox calendar; celebrated with an all-night vigil, feasting, and the greeting "Christ is risen" -- the exile's isolation is sharpened by facing it for the first time away from home.

• Zakuska (Appetizers) §2 Easter Eve

  The eve of Orthodox Easter, the climax of Holy Week; the household spends the night awake, feasting lightly before the midnight service ends the Great Lent fast.